Do you know how much it costs to launch your 1-person (solopreneur) recruitment agency in Singapore?

Read time: 3 minutes

I launched my agency in 2022 and it worked out to be a total of SGD $3,756.50 for the initial setup! This cost assumes you are WFH, and there is no office rent.

Let’s set some expectation. If your agency is bringing in $100,000 a year, this works out to be close to 4% (business expense).

If you are thinking of setting up your agency, this is the base cost. Some may be able to do it for less, by doing the company incorporation by themselves. It’s possible but tedious and unless you really want to bootstrap to the extreme, my advice is to pay someone to do this ground work. You will have peace of mind.

For an understanding of the steps and potential partners you can outsource this to, download my Solopreneur’s Guide to Recruitment Business.

Ok, let’s carry on. $3,756.50 is the entry barrier.

If you can afford this amount, you can get your agency up and running in less than a month using my guide.

Curious about the breakdown? Here it is.

SBBG stands for Security Bond and Banker’s Guarantee. Not every region requires it, but in Singapore, you need to put up a security deposit to run your own recruitment agency. This is mandated and it’s a hefty SGD $20,000 to 60,000 depending on the employment license you opt for.

Who has $20,000 to 60,000 spare cash?

Some. But definitely not most and especially when this is your first foray into the recruitment business. Even for experienced recruiters with deep wallets, this is still not the type of risk you want to expose yourself immediately to.

The SBBG alleviates this burden.

You only pay $1337.50 (as of 2022) to cover yourself for that security deposit requirement. It’s a no-brainer but few people know it and struggle to put up the full $20,000 in cash.

2nd Year Onwards

From the 2nd year, the cost goes down by 53%, and you only have to pay around SGD$1,750.00 per year to maintain your business’ fixed expenses.

This is because most of the expenses in the first year were one-off payments.

The SGD$1,750.00 is the recurring expenses.

Yes, things get better from 2nd year.

Now that you understand the cost involved in setting up your recruitment business formally, you can decide if this is within your current means and risk appetite.

Coming up: I will tell you more about how vast this industry is and why there is enough to go around.

Joo Kwang
​Author of Solopreneur’s Guide to Recruitment Business

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